


California English

by BasicBathsheba



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: California Agatha, F/F, Lesbian Agatha, Surfing, horse lesbians
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2020-05-16 05:31:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19311634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BasicBathsheba/pseuds/BasicBathsheba
Summary: I even told Minty that I didn’t like them. Just liked the idea of them. I was looking for something in each of them: a future, adventure, something different. And I never found it. It never fit.The thing is, I’ve spent so long chasing myself in other people, and then chasing myself in grand ideas, and now I’m wondering if all this time I’ve been looking for myself when I’m literally right here.I’m right here.





	California English

**Author's Note:**

>   * Please note: I know that technically Ags is in south California dating dudes as of the epilogue. I'm ignoring this. also, I know jack all about the us equitation circuit and so please just.... suspend disbelief. Thank you for reading![  
> ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23964982)
>   * [[Podfic] California English](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23964982) by [aralias](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aralias/pseuds/aralias)
> 


I’ve spent so long thinking about what I’m _not_ , that sometimes I think I don’t know what I _am_.

I’m not a mage. Not anymore. I left my wand at home when I came to America, thinking I could leave everything behind me. It was a lovely moment. It felt _good_. While it lasted.

Mum found it during a big clean and lost her mind — had it shipped to me priority mail, left me long voicemails, the works. Absolutely sobbed over it, and Helen and Dad got involved, and I had to make up an excuse and say I’d forgotten it, and when that didn’t work _I_ started crying just to get them to shut up.

The wand still came, though. Sitting on the stoop of my flat when I got back from class, the U.K. postage stamps glaring up at me with Lizzy’s sour old face.

I opened the package, snapped my wand in half and threw it into the ocean.

I don’t need magic here. Not in California. Just being here is magic. Walking into the ocean at sunset makes me feel more connected to the universe than magic ever did. Driving along winding cliffs and letting the wind blow through my hair makes me feel powerful in a way magic could never imitate. Once, my friends and I drove across the Bixby Canyon Bridge at night and I stood up and hung out of the sunroof and spread my arms wide.

I was able to fly, and I didn’t even need a spell.

Lucy and I moved to Monterey this year. It’s two hours to my college — the commute is awful — but I’m doing my internship at a vet up here and I only have classes two days a week. I just pack up Lucy and crash with my friends on Monday and Tuesday, and then I have the rest of my week here. My own paradise. Where nothing can touch me.

I thought I would miss my friends, but they come to see me, and I go to see them, and it’s nice. Being on my own for once. Moving cities on a whim. Making dumb decisions just because _I want to_.

I’m not scared. Not anymore. I’m not jumping from danger to danger, falling in and out of mysteries and hijinx and never ending drama. In California, I’m brave. I jump head first. I do new things. In California, I do things like learning to surf. A boy in one of my classes taught me; we paddled out almost every day for a month until I could do it on my own.

We sat out in the ocean at dawn, floating and watching the sun rise in silence, and then he turned to me. He was beautiful. Blond hair, blue eyes, tanned skin and not a freckle in sight. I know he wanted me to kiss him, to thank him for what he’d done. I knew that was the expectation. But I didn’t.

I don’t do things out of expectation anymore. I’m not predictable.

I’m proud of these things. I’ve worked hard for these things. But I spent so long trying to avoid getting stuck in a label — in a classification — that I’ve become terrified to be anything, I think.

And that’s not what I came to California to do.

 

***

 

It’s Minty who points out that I’m stuck.

She’s been staying with me in my one room shack that my landlord likes to call a cottage. She finished uni last spring and was trying and failing to find a job, because she refuses to waste her time working in a shop. (Which is fair. I mean, she went to _Durham_. She has better prospects than working till at some tourist trap castle.) Minty’s the only person from back home I keep in regular touch with — unless you count the occasional text with Penny, which I don’t, because it’s not ever done willingly — and I’d invited her to come stay.

It was a total whim. I do those, now. I don’t think things through.

I didn’t expect her to agree, but she did, and she’s been crashing on my sofa for half the summer. It was meant to be a few weeks, which turned into a month, and now I don’t know if she’s ever going home. It’s all hella bohemian and free spirited of her and it’s delicious and I’m slightly jealous.

I don’t mind, though. I like having her around, even if she does get uncomfortably close to the point sometimes.

We’re sitting on the rocks at the beach, drinking smoothies full of berries and nuts we can’t pronounce, when she tells me: upfront and direct, just like she always is. (It’s the best thing about her, I think. Minty always is and says exactly what she means.)

“I think I’m moving to the States,” she says, suddenly. “To California.”

“What?” I exclaim, almost choking on my smoothie. “For real?”

“Yeah,” she says, flicking her long brown ponytail behind her. “Nothing concrete, but I’ve had some conversations. I’m going to move here and try out for a US Equestrian team and then make a bid for the Olympics.”

“Oh my God.” (I say that now. No more _Crowley!_ or _Great Snakes!_ ) “That’s amazing?”

Minty shrugs and flashes me that tiny smile out of the corner of her mouth, the way she always does when she’s being smug. I love that about her. She doesn’t shrug because she can’t get the words out, like Simon always did. She shrugs because she can’t be bothered to respond, because she doesn’t need to pretend it’s not amazing. It’s pure confidence.

“I know. I’ve competed against Americans a lot, so I know the right people. We’ve been talking for a bit. And I figure, I’m white, so the racist little immigration people won’t bother me, and Granny was an American — that’s a family secret, by the way — which should help.” My heart speeds up. I’d forgotten how outlandish she is. How she just says anything. How when we were kids, I always wanted to be just like her.

“Anyway,” she continues, stretching out long limbs, “the training centre is in California, a bit north from here, so I came to get a peek.”

“Oh my God!” I repeat, my surprise moving on to delight. “Oh my God! You know, there’s a stable near here that always looking for instructors. And we could live together! We could be roommates!”

“Oh my God, we could be _roommates_ ,” she mimics. “That’s what I was hoping. Anyway, what are you doing next year? Are you staying here?”

“I’m going to vet school,” I say. I’ve just figured that out, actually. I’m proud of myself for making the decision. Dad is over the moon about it, and even Mum is grudgingly happy. “UC Davis.”

“So you’re going to be a vet?” she asks, bending down to run her hands through the water. It ripples around her fingers, the brown sand shimmering in her palm. “That’s properly swotty. I could see you in a killer pair of scrubs. White, I think. To match that American tan you’ve got.”

“Not sure,” I say, scrunching my nose at the idea of scrubs. Maybe I won’t be a vet. “I’m not positive I’ll be a vet. But I’m not ruling anything out.”

“Why do you do that?” she asks, straightening up.

“Do what?”

“ _I’m going to vet school_ , you say, and then turn around and tell me you won’t be a vet? You can’t answer questions directly or confirm anything. You’re impossible to pin down.” She snorts. “It’s like you’re being deliberately contradictory.”

I turn away from her and shrug. Not a Minty shrug, where words aren’t needed. A Simon shrug, where I don’t know what to say.

“Maybe I like being that way.”

“Mhm,” she says, flicking water droplets at me. “I think you just can’t make up your mind.”

I’ve missed her so much. She’d always been my best friend, and I was always supposed to act like she wasn’t, like she wasn’t as important to my life as Penny and Simon just because she was Normal. But she’s good. She’s funny and she’s quick and she’s just... Minty. She’s always known me better than anyone else. Even with the secrets.

Simon once called her horsey, and I never knew if he meant her face or her love of dressage. But regardless, I think she’s lovely. She’s immoveable.

“Do you want to swim?” I blurt. I can’t think of anything else to say about school and my future and my refusal to settle on a specific path for myself. But the sun is warm on my shoulders and the water is cool and this is a Whim. I follow these now.

“What?” Minty asks, turning to me. “Now? We don’t have suits on.”

“This is California,” I tell her, standing up and kicking off my sandals. “There are no rules.”

I pull my dress over my head and jump off the rock, landing in the low tide of the beach and running further into the water, toward where the waves are breaking. I don’t look back to see if she’s following me, because that’s not who I am. I run _towards_ things now, not away from them. I’m never running away from something ever again.

There’s a shriek and a splash behind me and suddenly there are arms around my waist, grabbing and dragging me into a wave. I scream as we go down in an undignified huddle, limbs tangled up, just like they used to when we were eight and having sleepovers.

I surface first, dragging my hair out my face and spitting seawater. I was not planning on getting my hair wet right now.

“What kind of cheek!” I scream, even though I’m laughing. Minty laughs with me, and then collapses backward into a wave. She’s wearing a matching grey sports bra and bottoms, and they’ve stained dark with the water. It’s not what I expected. When we were younger I figured she’d be all lace camisoles and soft pink cottons.

“What are you peeping at?” she asks, floating lazily, bobbing up and down with the swell of the waves.

“Nothing,” I say, sending a splash of water her way before I dive deep, strike out, and swim. Not toward anything, not away from anything. Just moving for the sake of moving. Just swimming because I can.

When I surface again, Minty is sitting on the shore, knees hugged to her chest, watching me.

 

***

 

“Knock knock,” Minty calls through the bathroom door. “Can I come in?”

I glance down at the bubbles in my bath and pull the curtain further across a bit.

“Sure,” I shout back. “Fair warning, I’m naked.”

“Oh lovely, I was hoping for a show,” she says, striding into my hideous green bathroom. Everything from top to floor is avocado green and outdated, and I love it.

She closes the lid to the toilet and sits down on it, and then produces a small bottle of pink nail polish from the pocket of her loose cardigan.

She’s always in something like this; she just lounges around in lush swing cardigans and athletic leggings and sports bras, always looking impossibly cute and comfortable at the same time. Sometimes it’s hard to imagine she hasn’t always lived in California. She fits here so well.

“Ags, are you drinking wine in the tub?” she asks, eyeing the bottle and glass on the floor next to me.

“Of course I am,” I respond airily. “I learnt at Diana Wellbelove’s knee.”

Minty snorts and props her foot up on the sink and begins carefully layering pink onto her toes.

“Speaking of,” I say, sitting up just enough to grab my wine without flashing her. Not that I could. I’ve hardly got a chest. (She used to make fun of me for that, actually, when we were fourteen. She was _hideous_ about it. I should really make her feel bad about that some time.)

“Mum texted me,” I say. “Ran into yours, apparently. Your parents are accusing me of keeping you hostage and turning you native. Their words.”

Minty makes a _pisha_ noise and keeps painting.

“Mum said they didn’t know when you were coming back,” I say, trying to choose my words carefully. _Mindfully_ , as the Americans say. “She said they alluded to some kind of a fight you all had?”

Minty’s focus and attention to detail doesn’t slip, but her fingers tighten on the brush.

“Poppy thinks everyone is always fighting with her,” she says dismissively. “I’ve told her a million times I’m thinking of moving here, and she acts like I’ve told her I’m going to the bloody moon. She’s fine.”

“You sure?” I ask. “Nothing’s wrong?”

“There is absolutely nothing wrong with me,” she says, which doesn’t answer my question. But whatever. She can keep her secrets. I have enough of them. And honestly? I don’t care. If she doesn’t want to tell me, she has her reasons, and I’m not going to dig around and root them out just for the sake of solving a mystery.

She sticks out her tongue and gives a last coat to her pinky toe and then straightens up, her toes done. “You want yours?” She rattles the bottle and I grin.

“Come on then,” she says, settling in a criss cross position on the floor next to the tub. “Let’s see those piggies.”

“You’re a hag,” I tell her, slowly pulling my feet out of the water and propping them on the side of my avocado tub. She grabs my towel and dries off my feet quickly, and it tickles a bit.

“And you’re a crone,” she responds, pausing to steal a swig of my wine, right out of the bottle. “If only Diana and Poppy could see us now. Aren’t we just a lovely pair?”

 

***

 

It should be claustrophobic, sharing my little house with her, but it’s not. We give each other space when needed, but I don’t think we really need it. Or at least I don’t. I like just being around her. I’d never admit it, but I’d missed hearing an English accent, and everytime she talks it makes me wonder if I am a little homesick.

But then I think about sand and sun and tacos, and then I think she may be the only thing I miss about home.

I like the way she makes tea in the evening and brings it out to me on my tiny, sandy porch while I’m doing my homework. I’d kind of given up drinking tea; no one here makes it properly, and I never have the patience to steep it. I’m a coffee drinker now, like everyone else. _Skinny vanilla latte. Cappuccino, extra foam._ I love the way they sound. I love the way I feel when I’m in line at a frantic Starbucks and the words just fall off my tongue.

But Minty makes good tea. Strong, a dash of cream, a dash of sugar. Just like being home. Just like Helen would make me. It tastes like rain and fresh grass and the paddock behind my parents’ house.

“Do you think you’ll ever go back?” she asks. We’re on my porch, my lush white comforter wrapped around our shoulders, drinking tea. I’m slowly writing an essay. She’s picking at the peeling skin from the sunburn on her legs.

“Back where?” I ask, watching as the flaky skin pulls away, revealing the soft, fresh pink skin of her upper thigh.

“Back home,” she says. “England.” She pulls another sheet off and lets it drift to the ground. “Think you’ll go back?”

I haven’t been back. Not since I left. I told Mum and Dad that after everything, being in England — being around the Coven — was too much and too traumatic for me. It’s not, I don’t think. I just didn’t want to go home and answer questions and catch up with people and deal with magic.

Mum and Dad believed me, though. They come out every summer and Christmas and we drive around California and hike and see the sights. We do Christmas at the Ritz at Half Moon Bay, and we order a bottle of champagne and toast each other, and they fly home in time to host their now-annual New Year’s party.

It’s staggering how much better I get on with my parents when we live in different countries.

“I dunno,” I tell Minty, putting aside my laptop. “Haven’t thought about it.”

“Bullshit,” she says, grinning. “Give me a straight answer.”

“I suppose it depends,” I say, sighing and moving so that I’m laying on my side and look up at her. In the purple and gold afternoon sun, her dark hair looks like flames. The sun has brought out small freckles on her nose, and her brown eyes are reflecting the sunset. “It’s not England I hate. I’d go back, if Mum really needed me. But there’s just… expectations. History, you know? That’s what I don’t want.”

Minty scratches at her knee and looks down.

“Have you spoken to Simon? Since…” she trails off, and goes uncharacteristically quiet. She doesn’t want to finish the sentence.

She doesn’t know what happened. I didn’t want to tell her, and I couldn’t, anyway, thanks to Dad and his stupid **ix-nay** spell. But she was curious about why I quit school halfway through the year, and why I was clearly “going through something.” She thought that I went to some super religious boarding school that didn’t allow internet, and she’d always been left with the impression that my parents were in a cult. Which I wasn’t going to correct. Magic _is_ a cult.

So when she found me researching schools in America and refusing to leave my bedroom, I told her as much of the truth as I could: Something really bad had happened at my school over Christmas break. Simon was involved, and he got hurt, and our headmaster got killed, along with another staff member.

That if I hadn’t run, it would have been me instead.

When we talk now, she doesn’t mention Simon. And not in a _he’s your ex boyfriend and that’s awkward_ way. In a _something really fucked you up and he was involved and if we talk about it I might drive to London and kill him_ way.

That’s what I’ve missed about Minty. Her willingness to slay my enemies. Or at least just be really, _really_ mean to them.

“Once,” I tell her, propping my head on my hand. Lucy snuffles over and curls up against my stomach, and I let my other hand trail through her fur. “Last Christmas. He called to say sorry.”

“Sorry?” Minty asks. She’s stopped picking at her skin and is leaning forward now.

“Yeah,” I say. “For everything he put me through when we were kids. For not being a good boyfriend.” I pause and chew on my lip. “I think he’s doing better now. Happier. That makes it easier for me, you know? Makes me feel less like a jerk for walking away when he was like, losing his mind.”

I twirl a finger through Lucy’s hair and snort.

“Did I tell you he’s gay?” I ask, lowering my head to kiss Lucy’s snout. She snuffles back into my face. It’s my favourite sound in the world.

“What?” Minty shrieks. “You’re joking.”

“Swear to God, no,” I say, shaking my head. “He’s with _Baz_. They’re ‘very happy’ and let a flat together in London and apparently drive Penny up the wall.”

“Oh my God,” Minty says, “I cannot believe. Both boys you crushed on, gay for each other. That’s poetic.”

I lay flat on my back and cover my face with my hands and groan.

“Is it? Or is it traumatic?”

“I cannot believe you turned two boys gay,” she says, poking me with her toe. “Wait, didn’t the secret boyfriend go gay too? Is this some kind of super power?” I swat her foot away and shake my head.

“Sacha? He’s not gay! He just was really into One Direction for a bit, that’s all.”

“Well that sounds fake,” Minty says, taking a sip of my abandoned tea.

“No, he was lovely,” I say, poking her back. “They all were, in their own ways.”

Minty makes a face.

“They all kind of seemed like twats, to be honest. I never understood why you liked any of them.”

“I’m not sure that I even did,” I admit. “I mean… I liked the idea of them, at least, even if I never really got into the whole _dating_ thing. I liked Sacha because he was Normal.” I pause, realise my words, and rush to consider. “I mean, so unlike everyone I went to school with. And I liked Simon because I suppose I _had_ to. He was the expectation. And he was kind, so why not?”

“I can think of a few reasons,” Minty murmurs, “starting with the fact that I’m not sure he could read.”

“You sound so much like Baz sometimes,” I say, snorting. “Sometimes I think I liked him _because_ he was so mean, you know? I didn’t want to date him, I don’t think. I just wanted something _different_.”

“And Baz was different? He sounded like every other public school boy we’ve ever met.”

“No, he was different,” I insist, shaking my head. “He was a bit dangerous, I suppose. I liked the sound of that.”

“I never would have pegged you for liking bad boys,” Minty says, putting aside my tea and stretching out on the ground on her back. She turns her head to the side and grins at me. “That’s so cliche.”

“I didn’t say bad!” I argue. “I just said different. Dangerous. Someone to, I don’t know. Take a risk on. Someone unexpected.”

“I can understand the appeal of different,” she whispers, her voice suddenly serious. “Trust me. I get the appeal of taking a risk.” She pauses, clears her throat, and turns away. “What about the American boys? The ones you’ve dated here?”

“I haven’t dated any. Not really.”

“Really?” she asks, rolling to face me. “Why not?”

I shrug. Not a Minty shrug or a Simon shrug, just a me shrug.

“Haven’t wanted to, and didn’t want to start just because it was expected.”

She watches me for a long moment and then rolls back to her back.

“Maybe,” she says, a small, cheeky smile forming, “it’s because you can’t handle how absolutely _brutish_ American men must sound when they come.”

My surprised shriek of laughter rings loud into the growing dusk.

 

***

 

It’s cold out, the wind whipping through the dunes and creeping through our sweaters and making the embers from the bonfire drift sideways through the night. My back is to the fire and it’s the oddest sensation to be sweating on one half of your body and freezing on the other side, but my friends are doing some kind of weird dance in the sand and I want to watch.

We haven’t done a bonfire like this in ages — not since freshman year, at least — but the whole group is here. Jenny and Sam-the-girl from my first year flat, Nathan and Jake and Sam-the-boy from our freshman seminar. There’s Andy, who taught me to surf, and Tara, who never wears shoes, and Lara and Lee who just sold their app. My friends. My American family, who showed me tacos and coffee and the ocean. Who have always let me be exactly who I want. Who are so bloody _normal_ I could kiss them.

And Minty. She’s here too.

She’s deep into some conversation with Tara about organic facial masks, and the sound of her voice and the warmth of the fire and the wine running through my system is making me sleepy and electrified at once, like my body is shutting down but buzzing, and a shiver runs through me.

Minty looks over and smiles. For a moment I think she’s found deep red lipstick somewhere, but no. It’s just the red wine we’ve been drinking, passing the bottle back and forth, staining her lips. Mine must be stained too.

“You cold?” she asks, scooting sideways and wrapping her arms around me. She runs her hands over my arms without a second thought and keeps talking to Tara.

I want to get up; I want to join Andy and Lee in their odd little dance or retrieve more wine from the picnic basket or grill another vegan hotdog for Lucy, but I don’t want to move from this spot.

Minty smells like wine and fajitas and my jasmine shower gel.

She’s in the middle of telling Tara about honey recipes she uses on her horse’s mane when the wind picks up again and sends my hair into her face. She shrieks as it covers her, a blonde sheet, getting in her mouth and eyes, and she scrapes it away from her, sputtering.

“When did your hair get so _long_?” she asks, running her fingers through the strands and straightening them. It sends a shiver down my spine again. “Ugh, it’s gorgeous. You’ve always been so gorgeous, Ags, it’s not fair.”

Her words are coming long and slow, like they do when she drinks. I like the way her voice goes deeper, more deliberate.

Her fingers keep moving, separating my hair into tidy sections, flying through a practised routine as she begins gathering it between her fingers and weaving it into a french braid. Her fingers scratch at my scalp lightly, applying small patches of pressure as she works, and I almost want to beg her to stop, to undo the braid, to rub my scalp. No one has braided my hair like this since I was little, when Helen would always do it.

I always hated having it touched.

“All done,” Minty says, snapping a hair band around the braid and tugging on the end. “Nice and neat.” She smooths the creases of my sweater across my shoulders, just once, and then replaces her arm around me and goes back to talking to Tara.

I don’t follow any of their conversation.

 

***

 

When Minty goes to meet with the US Equestrian people, I let her take my Prius. I thought about offering to drive her — she did ask if I wanted to go with — but in the end she goes alone. I thought that was for the best. She doesn’t need support and she never really wants opinions, and anyway, I have thinking to do.

I don’t get much thinking done when I’m around her. It’s like she kind of just sucks all my focus into this black hole, and anytime I try to think seriously my brain gets derailed by coming up with places for us to go to dinner or if she wants to binge a new HBO show with me.

She looks impossibly pretty for the meeting: she steals a pair of my white jeans, which hit her at the ankle and show off her new California tan. Crisp blue blouse, starched to perfection, dark shades, red lipstick. She looks like she belongs here. You’d never know she’s English.

“Good luck,” I tell her, tying a brown leather wrap around her wrist. I bought it when I first got to California. It was my first day and I had walked into some beach shop and thought it looked nice. It’s tacky as hell, but I keep it on me always; it’s easier to remember than carrying a stupid wand around. Maybe, deep down, I think of it as my instrument. My good luck charm.

“I don’t need luck,” she says, fiddling with the strap and turning it over and over on her wrist. She straightens up, puts on the sunnies, and tosses her hair back. “I’ve the shoulders of a queen and the hips of a whore, darling, and my gait is impeccable.”

“Poppy would drop dead if she could hear you now,” I tell her, pulling my surfboard out of the shed next to my house

“Here’s hoping,” Minty mutters, and then she’s gone, backing out of the driveway in my green Prius, the windows down, blaring Beyonce.

It’s a short walk from my cottage to the beach. I love this path; I don’t even bother to wear shoes, and when I have the surfboard with me people get out of my way. The board is kind of heavy, but that’s why I love it. It’s one of the clunky old fashioned ones, and I bought it for $5 off an old white man with dreads who smelled like weed and drove a literal Volkswagen bus.

My friends all say the board is more aesthetic that useful, but none of them seem to realise that’s half the _point_. If you’re going to do something, do it all the way. Lean in, as the feminists say.

The beach is packed because it’s warm and sunny today, and I navigate through families and couples and kids until I can paddle out. The surf is nothing; hardly any waves, but that suits me just fine.

I’ve come to think.

Penny once told me I’ve never been a deep thinker, which is just so shitty of her. Like just because I don’t steal books from libraries and memorise useless history I’m an idiot. I got into vet school. I’m not an idiot. I just don’t fit her idea of intelligence.

But she’s right about one thing: I’m not really introspective. I just kind of make up my mind now and then I go. I can tell you immediately what I’m not, what I don’t want. But what about who I am? What about what I want?

I want freedom. I want to rebel against expectations. I want to make my own future and be normal.

Sitting up on the board I run my hands through the salty water and breathe deep.

I want to kiss Minty.

It’s been there for a bit, but I guess I’ve just been ignoring it. Because that’s not normal, is it? And that’s not something that just _happens_. That has to have been there all along. But I had no idea.

And I’ve liked boys. I’ve _kissed_ boys. I liked Simon and Sacha and Baz.

But did I?

I even told Minty that I didn’t like them. Just liked the idea of them. I was looking for something in each of them: a future, adventure, something different. And I never found it. It never fit.

The thing is, I’ve spent so long chasing myself in other people, and then chasing myself in grand ideas, and now I’m wondering if all this time I’ve been looking for myself when I’m literally right here.

I’m right here.

I lay back on my board and close my eyes, the sun spreading yellow pinpricks against my closed lids, and I drift.

With my eyes closed, the waves bobbing beneath me, I think of Minty. I think of her arms around me at the bonfire, her fingers smoothing across my back, playing with my hair. I think of all the nights when we were girls having sleepovers when I’d watch her from across the room. The weird need to reach out, to be approved of, to be smiled at. The need to be _close_.

I think of Trixie from school, with her infectious laugh and the way she would bash her shoulders into mine during lacrosse practise.

I think of Jenny from my first year flat, with her full lips and delicate hands.

I think of every girl I’ve looked at and envied.

Every girl I’ve looked at and _wanted_.

I told myself it was jealousy. I spent years thinking I was just petty and mean because of all the girls I was jealous of. Especially Minty. I was always jealous of her.

But that doesn’t mean I’m _gay_ , does it? That doesn’t mean I’m… a lesbian. I’ve liked boys. I’ve kissed boys.

I can almost hear Penny’s stupid voice in my ear. _“Kissing boys doesn’t mean you can’t like girls_.” Yes, Penny, I _know_ that. But that advice doesn’t help when I’m cataloguing every kiss I’ve ever had and wondering — did I even like them? Did I even want them?

Or did I just seek them because it was expected?

Sitting up, I stand up on the board and dive neatly into the water and let it take me.

 

***

 

It’s been years since I was someone who followed the crowd or looked to other people for guidance and help. I do things myself, now. I follow my own voice.

But my own voice doesn’t really know anything about this, and thinks I should consult an outside source. Even though I don’t want to. I really don’t want to. I tried Google. All I got were some weird Buzzfeed listicles and really intense, official looking sites with a lot of bright colours that hurt my head and had just too much information.

I don’t want to write a thesis on this, I just want a question answered. For once I wish I still did magic, that I could pull out my wand and solve this with some quirky spell like **fellas, is it gay?**

I just wish I could like, talk to someone. Just ask them and have them tell me.

There’s really one one person I can think of to talk to, even if it makes me want to kind of stab myself in the eye because he’s such a weirdo.

I’m sitting on my porch, watching the afternoon sun, drinking wine because why the hell not? Minty isn’t back yet; she sent me a text letting me know she’d be late, so I have hours of alone time. Hours to do this.

Fuck it, I just have to do it.

Taking a breath, I scroll back through my phone contacts and press _call_.

He picks up after three rings.

“ _Hello_?”

His voice sounds the same, even four years later, and it sends me down a momentary spiral of nostalgia and weird embarrassment.

Baz Pitch is someone I don’t think or care about. Now that I’m not a teen girl trapped in existential angst, his whole schtick doesn’t really do it for me. Also the whole having it confirmed that he’s a literal vampire thing. It feels impossible. Like, sitting on my porch in California, watching the sun set, it doesn’t seem like there’s any way that somewhere in London there is a real ass gay vampire whose Instagram I still follow.

“Baz?” I say, winding my fingers through Lucy’s fur. “It’s Agatha.”

“ _Wellbelove?_ ”

“Do you know another Agatha it could be?”

“ _Unfortunately, no._ ” There’s a rustle on the other end of the line and he mutters something to someone, and I realise he’s not alone. God, I hope he’s not with Penny or Simon.

“Listen, I have a question.”

“ _Have you tried Googling it?_ ”

“Shut up,” I snap. My heart is beating weirdly fast and I feel a bit like I might be sick. “How did you know you were gay?”

There’s silence on the other end, and then suddenly more rustling, the sound of footsteps, and a sliding door opening and closing.

“ _Well,_ ” he says finally, “ _I think just asking that question is a decent indication._ ” There’s a pause. “ _And calling someone you don’t like who you haven’t spoken to in four years isn’t something one does on a passing curiosity._ ”

I don’t really know what to say. I don’t say anything.

“ _Out of curiosity,_ ” Baz drawls, “ _may I ask—_ ”

“No,” I interrupt. “No. That’s all I needed.”

“ _Listen, we might be comi—_ ”

“Don’t tell Penny, okay?” I add, picking lightly at a small scratch on the top of my foot. I already have her voice in my head. I don’t want to deal with it in real life too.

“ _What about Snow?_ ” he asks, and there’s a note of shitty smugness in his voice when he says it. Like he’s gloating. Like he’s showing off that he has Simon and I don’t. I couldn’t care less. I don’t want Simon. (I don’t even know if I want any boy.) He can keep him. He can keep them all.

“I don’t care,” I say. “Whatever.”

“ _Well then. Take care, Wellbelove_.”

“Sure,” I say. “Whatever.”

And then I hang up.

 

***

 

It’s late when Minty gets in. Nearly after nine. She makes a racket coming in, slamming the door and throwing down my keys, kicking her flats off and dropping her bag.

“Bitch, I think I’ve done it!” she shouts, walking into the living room where I’m sitting with Lucy, a bottle of red, and my pyjamas. Pink satin shorts and a matching top with little green fronds on them. Minty made me buy them.

“They were practically obsessed with me,” she says, “they want to do lunch again — what’s wrong with you?”

I have to look like such a weirdo, just sitting here in the dark with only the faerie lights on, staring at my phone. It probably looks like I’ve been waiting like a stalker for her to get home.

I kind of have been. God, that’s weird.

“Why are you fighting with your parents?” I blurt before I can stop myself.

“What?”

“Why are you trying to leave England, and why are you fighting with your parents? What are you running from?”

We’ve both been ignoring the fact that this is exactly what she’s doing, but I can’t let it go anymore. I need to know. Even though it’s so not fair of me to push this out of her when I can’t tell her my secrets.

“I’m not—” she starts, but I shake my head.

“Min.”

She stares at me like she’s measuring me up, her brown eyes wide with calculation and maybe fear, and then sighs.

“I’m a lesbian,” she says. There’s a fierce glint in her eyes, like she’s daring me to be an asshole, like she’d relish the chance to shred me for it. “I’m a lesbian and I told Mum and Dad and they asked me not to be. Said they could never look at their friends again if everyone knew.”

She pauses, waiting for me to say something, but I don’t.

“So if they can’t handle having me there, I’ll leave. Fuck them.” She spits out the last phrase. “I’ll do shit on my own. My way. Without their fucking expectations.”

‘Okay,” I say, standing. Lucy wakes up and shuffles out of my way as I cross the room toward Minty. “Alright. Sure.”

“Sure?” she asks.

I nod.

“Whatever.”

And then I kiss her.

I’ve never kissed someone before. I mean, I have, but I’ve never like, led the inciting action. I’ve always been the kissee. Never the kisser. I’ve just stood there and looked pretty and waited for Baz to notice me or Simon to kiss me because it seemed like a good time to do so and was properly, stereotypically romantic. I just waited to be kissed because it’s what I was supposed to do.

And I pretended to enjoy it. Even though kisses were always dry and boring and Simon was always way too forceful and I spent half the time waiting for it to end, because I thought that’s what kisses _were_. Something you endured.

That’s why I never kissed boys in California. Because I knew I was expected to. Because I didn’t want to endure it. Because I didn’t want to be kissed unless I was the one doing the kissing, unless I was the one who was steering the show.

And now I realise it’s because I just didn’t want to. I didn’t want to kiss any of those boys, because somewhere inside me, I knew that it would never be like this.

Minty immediately gives into it. There’s not even a moment of hesitation or deliberation, and I _love_ it. The second I kiss her she’s ready, sighing into my mouth and bringing her arms up to my waist. No _are you sure,_ no _what does this mean_. She just follows my lead and goes for it, pulling my bottom lip between hers and moving her head and making these tiny, amazing sounds.

She dives straight into deep water.

Minty’s red lipstick is tacky against my lips and her mouth tastes like wine, and she’s so light. She barely grips my waist, when I know she can press harder than this. She’s tackled me into the water, sat on top of me on the sofa, been physical with me before and yet now, for once, she’s holding back.

I break the kiss and lower myself off my tip toes to look at her.

“Stop holding back,” I say, stern. “This isn’t some whim and I’m not going to change my mind, and you’re not going to break me.”

Minty smiles, and it’s wolfish.

“Agatha Wellbelove,” she whispers, her accent lovely and rich and familiar as she ducks her head to mine, “I think you’re unbreakable.”

She kisses me this time, her hands tightening, her head moving, and, yeah. Kissing a girl is different. This isn’t something to endure. This is something to revel in. This is something to run toward, to celebrate.

This is magic.

 

***

 

Movies make airports out to be this hub of whirlwind romance and grand declarations and stuff, but I don’t think anything remotely heartwarming has ever once happened at a California airport other than heat stroke and crimes of passion.

It takes us almost thirty minutes to park the Prius and drag Minty’s bags out of the back and drag them inside and to the British Airlines check in.

“This is bullshit,” she mutters, standing in line and clenching her passport. She doesn’t want to go. I don’t want her to go either, but I’m not saying that, because I think only one of us can be in a pissy mood right now and since she’s the one flying home to her loser parents, I think she gets to win today.

“Will you bring me back Hobnobs?” I ask her, leaning in to her side to run my finger lightly over her elbow. “They taste really good in coffee, you know.”

“Yes, I’ll bring back the fucking Hobnobs,” she says, her voice pitched up and whiney. The line moves a bit and we move with it, Minty kicking her suitcase along in front of her. “I’m about to leave the bloody country to go back to hell, but yes, I’ll get your sodding snacks.”

“Babe,” I say, dropping my hand to grab hers, “you’re kind of being a bitch.”

Minty lets out a long huff and squeezes my hand.

“I don’t want to go,” she says, tilting to the side to rest her head against mine. “I don’t want to deal with them.”

“You’ll be back soon,” I say, rubbing my thumb over her knuckles and playing with the strap of my leather bracelet she’s still wearing. “No time at all, and you’ll have all your stuff and you can bring Lovelace. Oh my God, imagine how cute she’ll be in pictures with Lucy.”

Lady Lovelace Hardwood is Minty’s Percheron/thoroughbred cross. She’s a gorgeous gray dappled thing and an absolutely ridiculous choice for a dressage horse and I love her to the moon. She’s also named after a character in a smutty romance which is just… so Minty.

“What if you come with me?” she asks. She’s pouting. “That’s a brilliant idea. Come with me.”

“Uh,” I say, trying to force back the awkward laugh building in me, “no way. Love you, but no.”

“Please?” she asks, crowding into my space. “Please? We can get drunk in the barn on Prosecco like we used to and you can help me throw away half my old clothes.” She’s wiggling her shoulders. “And you can talk to my mum so I don’t have to.”

“For starters, I barely speak to _my_ mum, so no. And secondly, I don’t think she’ll want to see me. Given, you know.”

_The lesbian thing._

Minty calls it the Queer Fear, since I don’t know if I’m a lesbian, and I don’t really use the word yet. I mean, I guess I am. I don’t think I’m bisexual.

Sometimes I think about having sex with guys now and it makes me shudder a little, so no. Not bisexual. Still working on it.

My parents know. I figured it was best to tell them, because, honestly, if they were jerks about it I wouldn’t have to ever invite them to America again, and since Baz totally told Penny, I figured there’s a good chance she’d be showing up at my parents’ doorstep with like, pamphlets or something, so I wanted to head that off.

They were nice about it, mostly. Mum is gutted that Minty is Normal. There was more crying than there was with the wand debacle, actually, and she kept saying, “ _not that she’s not a very nice girl! We always loved having her over!”_ But.

But.

_“There are some very nice magickal girls in America, aren’t there?”_

Dad was better about it. He made an effort to seek out Minty’s parents when he saw them at dinner one night, and it apparently did not go well, which has pushed him kind of further to my side. He even offered to lift the **ix-nay** if I wanted.

I’m not going to, I think. Not yet, at least.

Penny thinks it’s akin to lying. (She’s not a jerk about the Normal thing, but she does think Minty should know, even though I literally never asked her opinion.) She gave me a long rant about how hiding secrets from your partner shows you don’t trust them. She sent me a link to a website about healthy communication skills. I didn’t click.

But it’s not lying. It’s not that I don’t trust Minty. It’s just… it’s not me. I don’t want it and I don’t need it. And confessing it to her makes it seem like magic is this big dark secret, but the truth? The truth is that I don’t care.

It doesn’t have power over me anymore. I am 100 per cent broken up with and over magic. And maybe one day I’ll need it or I’ll tell her or whatever, but I’m not worrying about that right now, because it stresses me out and I’m too young for stress wrinkles.

“I don’t want to _goooo_ ,” Minty groans, letting out a low grunt and sagging almost entirely against me. I shove her off.

“You’re going to go,” I tell her, using my annoyed voice. “You’re going to go and be as fast as you can and get all your shit and your horse and then when you come back I’ll take us for mimosas and avocado benedict and we can look at houses we can’t afford to rent.”

She scrunches up her face and I stand up onto my tiptoes, my brown leather sandals creaking, and kiss her at the corner of her mouth.

She sighs, but there’s a smile hiding there.

“I’m going to miss you,” she says, burying her face into my hair. I know she’s messing up the careful plaited crown I did this morning but I don’t say anything. “I’m going to miss you so much.”

My cheeks heat up a bit, like they always do when she says things like this. She’s so open and reckless and absolutely confident with her affection that sometimes it spins me. It’s never been like this. And part of that is age — it’s not fair to compare what I had with Simon, because we were kids. But part of it is that Minty knows what she wants, and I do too. I want this. I want her.

I want to sit on the beach and feel the sun on my face and watch she and Lucy play in the surf. I want to fight her to drink coffee and drink the tea she makes me in the evenings. I want to curl around her at night and hold her hand in an airport and be young and confident and stupidly in love and _normal_ with her.

Being with her feels like magic sometimes, but the best part of it is how extraordinarily ordinary it is. I’m not chasing things. I’m not listing what I’m not.

Minty is still crushing me with the weight of her theatrics, and I slide my arm around her back and wait for the line to move up, feeling her warm against my side, smelling like my perfume, sounding like home.

“Shoulders like a queen, babe,” I tell her, putting my hand on her lower back and kissing her again. “We can do this.”

I think, for the first time ever, I’m just being who I am.

  


**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] California English](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23964982) by [aralias](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aralias/pseuds/aralias)




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